


Keep Close in the Night

by Scrawlers



Series: Paradigm Shift [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 16:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17964002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: Dreams are just dreams, but some are nightmares, too. After one such nightmare, Keith seeks out the only person he needs to see alive and well just then.





	Keep Close in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> As noted, this is part of my Paradigm Shift alternate reality series. You probably don't need to read all the others before reading this one; just know that this is a reality where Lotor, the generals, and Keith are the Paladins of Voltron instead. If you are interested in reading the others, I have the chronological reading order listed on the series page, fully up-to-date.

Keith jolted awake so roughly he was half off his mattress before he realized it, his comforter squeezed in a trembling grasp.

He didn’t know what woke him, at first. His room was dark, as it always was. It was quiet. He was alone and everything was at peace.

_Alone . . ._

Keith’s stomach turned with anxious nausea, and he resisted the urge to retch as he swallowed.

It was a nightmare. That was what woke him. It was kind of funny, because nightmares ( _memories_ ) usually didn’t faze him. He had already lived through it once; so what if he had to do it again in his sleep? But that was the difference—this nightmare wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t something that had ever happened, or that ever  _would_  happen if he had anything to say about it. The feeling of comet-mined steel beneath his fingers as he wrenched open the door of the Sincline ship, the sight of Lotor’s mangled corpse—

Keith put his forehead against his knees, his fingers squeezing his hair in tight fists, before he threw himself out of bed.

He couldn’t just sit there. He couldn’t just sit there and do  _nothing_. Not after that.

The castle was so quiet at what they figured was probably night on some planet or another somewhere nearby. Almost everyone was asleep. The last thing Keith wanted to do was wake anyone up, but knowing Lotor, there was a good chance he was awake anyway. Of course, there was also a good chance he wasn’t even in his room, and Keith knew he couldn’t spend all “night” searching the castle.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

Despite all the tests the Empire scientists had done on him on Revender, no one—and certainly not Keith himself—could understand how or why he could sense quintessence. It wasn’t even just quintessence, Keith didn’t think; it was also gut instincts, gut feelings—he just  _felt_  things. But whatever it was, and no matter why he could do it, it was a useful skill. At Lotor’s suggestion, Keith had honed it over the decaphoebs. He could at least pick out his team’s individual quintessence signatures pretty easily now, even half asleep, and after practice (“playing hide-and-seek,” Ezor called it) the size of the castle didn’t present a problem.

Lotor’s quintessence always felt cool in his mind—smooth, silky, soothing, and somehow bright white-silver even though he couldn’t see it.

Keith opened his eyes, and couldn’t resist a little grin.

Lotor’s quintessence was also coming from the east wing of the castle.

Keith found Lotor in the castle library, which was stupid given how late it was—but then, Keith knew that was just his own fatigue talking. The important thing was that Lotor was in the library. He was standing by a table, bent over some ancient altean book, dressed in a robe and sleep pants, his long hair loose, but tucked behind his ears.

He was alive. Lotor was alive and safe, which of course he was, because all Keith saw was a nightmare his brain dragged up out of too many recent close calls and too many encounters with people like Zarkon, Haggar, or other Empire loyalists who wanted Lotor dead. But even so, Keith bizarrely felt like he could collapse in relief.

But he didn’t. Instead, he softly called, “Hey,” as he walked up to Lotor from behind, and once he knew that Lotor knew it was just him, he wrapped his arms around Lotor’s waist, his face in Lotor’s hair.

“Hello,” Lotor said. Keith could hear his smile. “I thought you went to bed.”

“I did. Couldn’t sleep.”

He couldn’t talk clearly, either, his face against Lotor’s back like this, but he also didn’t want to move. Lotor smelled like soap and shampoo, a little bit like ship fuel and steel, and something else, something distinctly  _Lotor_  that none of the rest of them shared, unlike the other scents. Keith always thought of it as  _white lightning_ , even though he knew that didn’t make any sense at all.

But he couldn’t stay there all night. He pulled away just enough so that he could stand by Lotor’s side, one arm still around Lotor’s waist as he leaned into him. “What’re you doing up?”

“Reading,” Lotor said, and when Keith gave him a flat look, elaborated, “I couldn’t stop thinking about that altean artifact I discovered in the Ruvean market, and more specifically about the engravings on it. I know I’ve seen those symbols and read that name somewhere before. The thought of it wouldn’t let me rest, so I thought I’d do some reading to try to unearth more information.”

“Mm. Any luck?”

Lotor smiled ruefully. “Not as of yet, I’m afraid.”

Keith considered the stacks of books on the table for a moment before he turned his head and kissed Lotor’s chest.

“The books’ll still be here tomorrow,” he said. “Let’s go to bed.”

Lotor smiled at him, an eyebrow raised. “I thought you were unable to sleep?”

Keith shrugged, and looked back at the table. “Might sleep better with you there.”

He hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, and as a result he mumbled it more than anything. But Lotor seemed to hear him regardless. He wrapled his arm around Keith’s shoulders to hold Keith against his side, and planted a kiss against Keith’s temple.

“I love you,” Lotor breathed, and though his voice was a whisper caught by Keith’s hair, Keith heard him anyway, and held Lotor more tightly still. “Come; let’s retire for the night.”


End file.
